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M.R. Supplee

M.R. Supplee

Federal (USV)

Lieutenant

Mark Rambo Supplee

(1836 - 1901)

Home State: Pennsylvania

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 51st Pennsylvania Infantry

Before Antietam

In 1860 he was a 23 year old living with his parents and siblings on their substantial farm at Upper Merion in Montgomery County, PA. He enlisted there on 31 August 1861 and mustered as First Sergeant of Company I, 51st Pennsylvania Infantry on 28 September 1861 in Harrisburg (or 28 November in Annapolis, MD). He was appointed 2nd Lieutenant on 23 June 1862.

On the Campaign

He was with his Company in action on South Mountain on 14 September and at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

The rest of the War

He was wounded and disabled by a gunshot through his foot at Fredericksburg, VA on 13 December 1862, and was afterward in a hospital in Alexandria, VA and on furlough to Norristown, PA. Though not fully recovered, he rejoined his Company in April 1863 was with them through the Vicksburg Campaign into July.

In August 1863 he was found unfit for field service due to his Fredericksburg wound and sent to Camp Nelson, KY. He was appointed 2nd Lieutenant in the 110th Company, 2nd Battalion, Veteran Reserve Corps (formerly Invalid Corps) in about November 1863 and put in charge of the Convalescent Camp there. He was returned to the 51st Pennsylvania Infantry in February 1864, commissioned First Lieutenant on 6 June, but not mustered at that rank, and mustered out at the end of his term of service on 12 November 1864.

After the War

From 1865 to 1868 he was assistant revenue collector in Montgomery County, PA. He began to receive an invalid veteran's pension in August 1871 and in 1880 he was a farmer at Upper Merion, PA near his father Alexander and brother Andrew's places. From 1887 to at least 1900 he was Superintendent of the Ridge Avenue Farmers' Market in Philadelphia.

References & notes

His service basics from the Card File 1 and the index to his Compiled Service Records, US National Archives. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860, 1880, and 1900, his pension card, online from fold3, and a bio sketch in Samuel T. Wiley's Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (1895). His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of his picture, from a photograph contributed by Charles McDonald.

He married Hannah Mary Baker (1844-1927) in February 1869 and they had 8 children. Hannah was still receiving a veteran's widow's pension of $30 a month at her death.

Thanks to great-grandson Willard Supplee Yeakel for the pointer to Lieutenant Supplee and for considerable information about him, most notably a copy of a November 1863 letter Mark wrote the US Army's Provost Marshal General detailing his service to that time, including his presence in Maryland in 1862.

Birth

04/11/1836; Upper Merion, PA

Death

07/18/1901; Abrams, PA; burial in Montgomery Cemetery, West Norriton Township, Montgomery County, PA

Notes

1   Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Adjutant-General, Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans' Card File, 1861-1866, Published <2005, first accessed 01 July 2005, <http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/archive.asp?view=ArchiveIndexes&ArchiveID=17>  [AotW citation 29835]